BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 12 (Reuters) - A squad of U.S. troops
despatched by helicopter across the Libyan desert to rescue
besieged diplomats from Benghazi on Wednesday ran into a fierce
overnight ambush that left a further two Americans dead, Libyan
officials told Reuters.

Accounts of the mayhem at the U.S. consulate, where the
ambassador and a fourth American died after a chaotic protest
over a film insulting to Islam, remain patchy. But two Libyan
officials, including the commander of a security force which
escorted the U.S. rescuers, said a later assault on a supposedly
safe refuge for the diplomats appeared professionally executed.

Miscommunication which understated the number of American
survivors awaiting rescue - there were 37, nearly four times as
many as the Libyan commander expected - also meant survivors and
rescuers found themselves short of transport to escape this
second battle, delaying an eventual dawn break for the airport.

Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, whose special operations unit was
ordered by Libya's authorities to meet an eight-man force at
Benghazi airport, said that after his men and the U.S. squad had
found the American survivors who had evacuated the blazing
consulate, the ostensibly secret location in an isolated villa
came under an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage.

"I really believe that this attack was planned," he said,
adding to suggestions by other Libyan officials that at least
some of the hostility towards the Americans was the work of
experienced combatants. "The accuracy with which the mortars hit
us was too good for any regular revolutionaries."
Continued...